Articulated cutting head and conveyor mount for sod harvesting machines

Abstract

An articulated cutting head and conveyor mount for sod harvesting machines. The invention provides a linkage design that can provide many benefits including: allowing the operator to see the cutting operation, enabling the high lifting of the cutting head for service and maneuvering, managing the vertical bending load of the ground reference roller, providing high transverse stiffness, maintaining the position of the conveyor relative to the cutting head. The linkage design can include fewer parts than previous designs while still being robust and durable. As such, cutting heads employing the linkage design of the present invention can produce higher quality slabs with less service and maintenance than when using current designs.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 619,387, filed Apr. 2, 2012, titled Articulated Cutting Head And Conveyor Mount.BACKGROUND[0002]Sod slabs are harvested in a serial manner by a harvesting machine which removes them from the ground continuously. FIG. 1 generally illustrates a typical cutting head 100 used on harvesting machines. As shown, cutting head 100 employs two rollers: a leading compaction roller 101a which presses down on the turf to compact it before it is cut; and a ground reference roller 101b that sets the position of the cutting head with respect to the ground. Other harvesting machines will combine the two roller functions into the ground reference roller, or ignore the turf compacting function in general.[0003]Cutting head 100 also includes a transverse chopping blade or blades 102a which chop the slab to length at the leading edge, which also forms the trailing edge of the pr...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention introduces an articulated cutting head and conveyor mount for sod harvesting machines. The new design offers several benefits such as improved visibility, enhanced lifting of the cutting head, better machine maneuvering, increased stiffness, and maintained position of the conveyor relative to the cutting head. Compared to previous designs, the new linkage system has fewer parts while remaining durable and robust. This results in higher quality slabs and less service and maintenance requirements. In some cases, the conveyor is raised and lowered along with the cutting head, allowing for easier handling.

Problems solved by technology

Such variations in the slab thickness transverse to its length can produce tapered rolls which do not roll up properly, adversely affecting the quality of the turf.

Slabs that vary in thickness longitudinally when stacked produce a pallet that is tipped to one end and thus less stable.

Additionally, severe variations in thickness result in slabs that may break apart when handled making the subsequent laying of slabs very difficult.

Current cutting head designs have various problems.

Such cutting heads have a ground reference roller that is several inches aft of the spindle and produces a large vertical bending load on the spindle.

This leads to a fracture failure of the spindle.

These designs are often inadequate because the cams and linkages are supported by structures that block the view of the operator.

Also, cam type supports lack strong transverse stiffness which is necessary to prevent some sideways skewing of cutting blade 102b.

The support mechanisms used in cam type systems also wear quickly due to sand particle contamination leading to failure of the spindle if not regularly replaced.

Additionally, spindle systems lack transverse stiffness.

This results in transverse flexing of the cutting head that skews the blade trajectory with respect to the longitudinal direction of travel leaving an undesirable ragged edge on the slab.

Finally, in current designs, the conveyor can generally only be raised a few inches and thus gets damaged by obstacles during field maneuvering and transport.

Further, if the cutting head and the conveyor are rigidly connected, it is difficult to lift the head high enough for easy service.

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